It looks to me like the boy is being tickled in BOTH of the sofa pictures. In one, the older boy/man is tickling the boy's bare belly where the shirt rode up. If you look carefully, in the second one it appears that someone outside the picture to the right is tickling the bottom of the boy's feet with either a reddish colored broom or 2 handfuls of incense sticks.
Looking closely at the photo of the poor, skinny boy with his arms elevated and tied to a hook, you can see in the background a heart drawn or carved on the wall with "Heavy Metal" inside it. Also a "Z". Those make it look like a "teenager-kind-of" room. It looks like there's mold or water damage on the wall down near the floor, so it looks like a basement. Of course, I pray these are contrived photos, maybe taken by an older brother in his basement room, but there is a glass-topped (reflecting light on wall when photoshopped to make the photo brighter) display case to the right of that little boy with what looks like weird metal equipment inside. Does anyone else see this?
In one of the photos of the Gosch boy tied up, it appears that to the right of the bed is a bookcase or cabinet with a clock, a flashlight, maybe magazines or newspaper? Once again, it looks like a normal young man's messy room. I'm hoping these are just photos taken to look like the boy is tied up. The two with the boy being tickled (and giggling) gave me the feeling that they are a hoax. The reality, however, is that these boys ARE missing.